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We are unveiling (drum roll, please) the REAL, THE FINAL, THE UNDISPUTED COVER of Daughters of the Soil, an Udara Series, my first crime fiction/mystery novel.

All right! All you sleuth’s out there, get ready to solve a crime or unravel a mystery.

Basic storyline: Emelda Udara’s kind, devoted, and romantic husband is found afloat Udia River. Nobody knows if he fell in, was pushed in, or was thrown in posthumously. Little David is sent post-haste to get the Udia police on the scene. (We are avoiding the use of “crime scene” for obvious reasons).

Big question:WHO DONE IT? or WHODUNNIT?

Here are the facts as the Udia Police knows it:

Who/victim: Obi Udara (late 30’s; father of two)

Where/scene:Udia River

What:Body was found floating on Udia River with no lacerations or apparent signs of injury/foul play.

When: July 6 (indeterminate year but toward the beginning of the 21st century)

How/weapon:That’s your job, sleuth!

Why/Motive:That’s your job, sleuth! Motive, anyone? Serve it up!

Suspects: Let me tell you. The list is long! Thirteen usual and unusual suspects. Watch out for their descriptions, alibi (or lack thereof), and THEORIZED motives in a few days.

In the mean time, Daughters of the Soil, an Udara Series is on pre-order!! Please head over to Amazon. Search for Youkay Ohanenye or search for the book using its ASIN: B07FRZ42CJ.

I have received posts that you plan to buy my book(s). Thank you!!! I would love your feedback. I would have loved to have given you copies of my books. Unfortunately, Amazon is cracking down on authors for giving away their books to get reviews, and I need your reviews in the most honest way.

This situation is so enforced that Amazon tracks links between FB friends, family members, and so on. If I were to post DIRECT LINKS to my books, Amazon would consider that badgering or soliciting reviews. Amazon has gone as far as taking drastic actions against authors by pulling their books, etc.

Therefore, I can only give you a direct link to your own purchases through Amazon. According to Amazon, for your review to count, you must have spent $50 on Amazon… Even at that, for your review to count (which should include my book[s] after you buy it or them), Amazon wants you to find the book yourself. I cannot do a search of my books, copy the search result, and give that link to you. That is called coercion.

After you have read any of my books when they come out, you can click on the link below. It will take you to a review page for all the products you have bought from Amazon including my book(s). Please leave a review for me. Authors, other sellers, and Amazon take reviews seriously. I thank you in advance!

Here is the link: https://www.amazon.com/review/create-review/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_wr_but_lft?ie=UTF8&channel=reviews-product&asin=YOUR-PRODUCT-ASIN

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Here are Amazon’s rules and regulations regarding reviews. It is a serious matter.

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My name is Frances Ohanenye, and I would like a moment of your time to discuss a topic to which I hope you can relate.

The topic is HUNGER. What type of hunger have you experienced? Are you experiencing?

While I wait for your response/feedback, let me share my story of hunger. There is a type of hunger that is beyond food and water, beyond material things. No matter the type of person you are, I believe you may have experienced this time of insatiable appetite. It is not hunger for love or relationship either although we hunger for those as well.

It came to my attention when I was only eight years old. I remember vividly getting paper and pencil (or pen) and starting to write a story. I guess you could say that being an avid reader at that age would lead naturally to writing, but how would an eight-year-old know that? I remember winning a spelling contest.

I guess that meant that I could spell correctly. I guess my teacher knew that I loved to read because my prize for being the first-place winner of that spelling contest was a book. My teacher wrote “First Place Winner” and my name. The recognition did not satisfy any hunger in me, so that must not have been the hunger that possessed me.

But how do being a good speller and being a voracious reader translate into an obsessed writer at that age? I did not know what to call it, but it must have been a special hunger that welled inside me and moved my little legs and hands to search our house for paper and writing utensils, to find an unobtrusive place and sit and begin to write.

Something propelled me to pour things down. I do not recall hesitating or having what people call writer’s block. I remember that I wrote and wrote and wrote. Calls for lunch and dinner went unheeded. Obviously, I was not hungry or thirsty for food or water. Calls that it was my turn to do the dishes were ignored.

There was something that held me spellbound to the chair. I could not free myself from its grip. I had to pour it all out of me so that I could go and eat and so that I could help around the house or get in the biggest trouble of my young life. Even the thought of getting in trouble did not cause the hunger to jump out of my being and find someone else into whom to land. It has never left me, which is the reason I am speaking to you today.

Can you relate to that type of hunger?

Regardless of your profession, I am certain there is something that causes you to yearn until you quench it. Regardless of time and space and the distance you try to place between you and that hunger, it will not let you go until you take an action to satisfy it.

I remember that the story I wrote when I was eight was about a little girl, but I did not know her age. I did not know what the word genre was, whether it was a short story or a novel, did not have a title for it at that time, and I do not know what happened to that story. It is still in bits and pieces in my head. I mourn its loss sometimes. Maybe I will gather those bits and pieces in my head and grow them into a semblance of that story.

That hunger is like many of Langston Hughes’ poems about dreams. He must have had a hunger that would not leave him alone even as he was transported from one relative to another until he became of age and made good on his hunger. In “Dream Deferred,” he asked specific questions about dreams: do they dry up like a raisin in the sun, turn into a syrupy sweet, or does a dream explode?

I have lived life as best as I could with the hunger suppressed inside me like a pebble in my shoe. It was there when I finished graduate school and wrote for publications. I gave in to that hunger and wrote with abandon for those three years I went home to Nigeria. Then I ignored it. It rose like the phoenix. It was there when I got married. It was there during pregnancy, and I wrote poems about my unborn baby. It was there when divorce and single-parenthood arrived, and it kept me company. It was there when my parents passed away, but I was too immersed in grief to write. It was there when my daughter grew up and got married.

It is there now, center stage, and has refused to be kicked to the curb any longer.

I am slowly and surely giving it the time and attention it has so rightly deserved, but I want to pause today and reach out to you to hear about your hunger.

What is it that you have tried to suppress that has left an ache, a yearning in your deepest self?

Have you started feeding that hankering, done anything with it? To it?

Share your situation with me there in LinkedIn, here, or elsewhere in social media. I would love to find out what your hunger is.

Thank you so much for allowing me to intrude into your peacetime today. I am most honored for your time and attention. Remain blessed.

I am giving away excerpts of my books before they are released. Help yourself, but first, leave me your e-mail address so that I can send you the copy(ies) of the book or books you want. Thanks for your help. Scroll to the “Subscribe” button on the lower right-hand side and leave your e-mail address. Otherwise, you can include it in the “Comment” box provided. Thanks!

When you finish reading, please return to the comment box and share your thoughts.

Genre:Daughters of the Soil: Crime/ fiction– Please leave your e-mail address in the “Subscribe” box to receive the excerpt.